Let's Get Physical

     My body is racked with pain after just watching that slugfest in Oxford.  Ole Miss tacklers repeatedly made the kind of hard hits that my high school school coach used to call "slobber knockers."
     Joker Phillips obviously told his Kentucky team at halftime, "Let's get physical.  Let's put some licks on them that they'll remember all week."  And UK's defenders did respond with some hard hits, but unfortunately too many of them came after the whistle blew.
     On the first Ole Miss possession of the second half, the Cats handed them 35 yards as a result of penalties,  Two of those were for late hits after the whistle.  After falling 22 points behind in that second half, you have to admire the way UK hung in there and made a game of it, but after losing what everybody agreed was a "must win" game, these Cats could be in big trouble.
     We're going to hear more than once in the coming week how hard it is to win on the road in the SEC. but remember this was an Ole Miss team that had already lost home games this season to Jacksonville State and Vanderbilt.      
     After Derrick Locke accounted for all 60 yards of UK's first touchdown drive, it looked like Kentucky would hang another embarrassing "L" on Houston Nutt's squad.  But even with Locke's track star status, it became obvious as the game progressed that Ole Miss had an edge in overall team speed as well as toughness.
     The losers did gain more yards than the winners in this game, but that was due in large part to the fact that Ole Miss didn't have to put long scoring drives together thanks to UK turnovers and the fact that two kick-offs by freshman Joe Manseur sailed out of bounds allowing the Rebels to start drives at the 40 yard line.
     Offensively, Mike Hartline missed a couple of short passes early when his timing seemed to be slightly off, but he still wound up throwing for 300 yards and 2 touchdowns.  What's frustrating is that with a dynamic duo like Derrick Locke and Randall Cobb, this UK offense should not go 3 and out as often as they did at Oxford, and they sure as heck shouldn't come up empty on 10 of 16 third down situations.
     Cobb was simply magnificent catching passes and returning kicks, and when he made a rare miscue with his fumble deep in Kentucky territory, he came right back to make one great play after another enabling the Cats to get the lead back.  How he hung on to the TD pass on which he was hit hard enough by two defenders simultaneoulsy to knock his helmet off I'll never know.  When you lose your lid and still hang on to the ball, you've got some kind of concentration and a whole lot of courage.
     Meanwhile Hartline has gone from being a "game manager" last year to a riverboat gambler this season.   He's got a lot of confidence now that he can complete even the toughest throws, and sometimes that's going to result in an interception.  Just ask Brett Favre.
     Hartline's counterpart at quarterback, Jeremiah Masoli, figured to cause the Cats lots of problems, and he did.  The really disturbing part is how easily his receivers seemed to get open.  When his tight end caught a touchdown pass on the first play of the 4th quarter to put the Rebels up 42 to 20, the guy could have ordered a hot dog in the time it took for any UK defender to even get near him.   You may recall that play came after Jesse Grandy of Ole Miss sprinted 73 yards with a punt return to the UK 2 yard line.  That's when the thought crossed my mind that the Rebels have a lot more speedsters than UK does.
     The fact that Kentucky still had a chance to win or tie this game in the closing minute is a tribute to the attitude that Joker has instilled in his team.
When another super catch by Cobb for a two point conversion still left UK down by 2 touchdowns late in the game, you could tell by their body language that most of the Cats felt they could still find a way to win.
     They almost did when Harline hooked up with the tall and every improving Chris Matthews on another scoring pass, and the Cats followed it up with an absolutely perfect on-side kick.  UK did everything right on that kick except come up with the football in the midst of a traffic jam.
     Apart from the standout play of Locke and Cobb, there were some other positives in this loss including the 2 long field goals by Craig McIntosh and the 73 yard punt by Ryan Tydlacka.  Danny Trevathan could be one of the SEC's best linebackers, and Mark Crawford is becoming a force in the middle of the defensive line, but I'm still haunted by the image of the pile moving almost every time an Ole Miss runner was met near the line of scrimmage, and that pile always seemed to be moving toward the UK goal line.